Todd’s Serial Blog

Character actor Frank Glendon specialized in old school villainy during the silent days of film.  Alternately billed as J. Frank Glendon and Frank J. Glendon he played in The Salamander (1915) Hush (1921), More to Be Pitied Than Scorned (1922) and Just Like a Woman (1923).  He also co-produced and starred in Tricks (1925) and Three Pals (1929).

With the coming of sound, Glendon became a staple of the poverty row B-Westerns; appearing in Law and Lawless (1932), Gun Law (1933), Texas Tornado (1934), Circle of Death (1935), Border Caballero (1936) and King of the Pecos (1936).  He is best known today for playing Prof. Beetson, who frames Gene Autry for murder so he can steal the singing cowboy’s radium rich land in Mascot’s Phantom Empire (1935)

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Talent alone will not get you a successful career in Hollywood.  Luck plays an important part as well.  Constance Bergen is a case in point.  A singer who came to Hollywood to make it big she started out in B-Westerns like Big Boy Rides Again (1935), staring Guinn “Big Boy” Williams.

After a small part in the Astaire/ Rogers musical Follow The Fleet (1936) she got her big break, a supporting role in Petrified Forest (1936).  Unfortunately most of her footage was cut out of the film.  After this bit of bad luck, her next role was in the Stage and Screen serial The Black Coin (1936), playing the daughter of a shipping company owner, who’s business is secretly being used by international spies.

The remainder of her career consisted of small parts in Westerns like Too Much Beef (1936) and High Wide and Handsome (1937).  She also played  a blackmailing seductress in the exploitation film Fools of Desire (1941)  Her last known film credit was playing a nurse in the Lon Chaney, Jr. horror film Man Made Monster (1941)

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Not much is known about actor Maurice Liu.  According to Leonard Kohl’s Sinister Serials, Liu was a Chinese filmmaker who came to the US to study cinematography and got into acting for a short time. His most well known role was as Herman Brix’s servant/ sidekick, helping him track down master criminal Bela Lugosi in Victory’s Shadow of Chinatown (1936) serial.

His only other film credits are a small role in the Bing Crosby musical Waikiki Wedding (1937) and two uncredited bit parts in West of Shanghai (1937), a Boris Karloff thriller, and Daughter of Shanghai (1937) featuring Anna May Wong, Charles Bickford and Buster Crabbe.

After that, Liu apparently returned to his homeland.

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